Cough Syrup
by Eleture
Summary: Burt discovers Blaine has been self-harming. Prompt from Tumblr. Triggers: self-harm, cutting.


_**Triggers: **_**Self harm. VERY EXPLICIT. **Including an exploration of the emotional aspects of it. IF SELF HARM IS A TRIGGER FOR** YOU DO NOT READ THIS. **_PLEASE_**. **

_**A/N: **_thanks for the prompt anon! :) I hope this is alright. If you sent me a prompt don't worry I have it and I'll be writing it soon.

**Cough Syrup**

_Hope is a weapon of mass destruction. It wears us down little by little, the way water erodes the bottom of a cliff-face until one day it's just too brittle to stay standing, and suddenly the whole ground shakes and the world falls in on itself. _

_Stay strong. Never, never, never give up. Because when you do? When you let go you really do fall. And if there's one thing more terrifying than clinging by your fingertips? Well, it's having nothing to cling to at all. _

_I've learnt though, that the free-fall - when you're not breaking your fingers grasping at the ledges that don't exist - is so much harder. I've learnt that sometimes the wind with it's cold blasting, bruising, painful shove in your face can be the most wonderful thing. Because if you can feel it? And if you can feel your fingers broken and bloody then it means you're trying. Then you're alive, and you're feeling. _

_That is so, so much better than not feeling anything at all. _

-.-.-.-

Burt is looking for cough syrup for Carole before heading to work. He counts sixteen options before he turns around to seek help from someone he can blame if he gets the wrong one. He knows Carole has a specific brand but it's just before seven in the morning and he's really not in the mood. He's been up most of the night listening to his wife try to muffle her cold.

He's just moving to intercept the young woman who's stocking shelves when his back hits something solid and he hears a sharp inhaled gasp.

"Oh, sorry I – Blaine?"

The teenager before him looks _tired. _There are dark circles under his eyes, tear tracks on his face and his clothes are dishevelled. Blaine looks like hell.

"It's fine Mr Hummel, really."

"Are you okay?"

Blaine's smile is a familiar one, a mask he hasn't used around Burt in a long time, years even. It's like having a knife driven into his heart. Blaine seems so distant as he shifts his grip on the basket he's carrying. A quick survey reveals it's filled with bandages, burn creams and – disposable _razors? _

"I'm fine thankyou sir." Blaine replies, and then he moves slightly, hiding the basket from view, "I have to go, my dad is expecting me back."

Blaine is gone before Burt can register the words and realise that Blaine just lied to his face. The Andersons are in Italy until next week. Finn has been complaining that Blaine can't get his permission slip for a charity performance signed until then.

Frowning, Burt chooses any random cough syrup and hurries to pay, watching for the boy from the corner of his eye.

He gets to the store just in time to see Blaine's car vanish down the street.

-.-.-.-

The second time they run into each other in the Supermarket. Aisle Ten. Blaine's is carrying a box of plasters and a bottle of milk in one hand, the other avidly typing on his phone. He doesn't so much as glance at Burt as he walks by with such determination it's clear he's praying Burt won't acknowledge him.

Burt intends to let the boy keep his distance until he notices the red stains on the bottom Blaine's white dress shirt. _Something is wrong. _He doesn't think before he reaches out and grabs Blaine's wrist to stop him.

"_Fuck." _

Blaine just swore? Blaine just swore. The boy looks at Burt with guarded eyes as he pulls his arm back and cradles it against his chest.

"What's wrong with your wrist Blaine?"

"Oh, you just touched a bruise from gym class."

"You're bleeding." Burt points out, watching the red scratch across Blaine's fingers. The teenager's eyes drift away from his.

"I was gardening before, must have hit a rose thorn." He wraps his fingers in his shirt and leaves Burt standing there dumbfounded. Who gardens at _nine o'clock _at night?

-.-.-.-

It's sort of an accident the first time it happens. Blaine is pulling the photos of him and Kurt off the corkboard in his bedroom so he can make way for more from the prom when he drops the little pin. As he picks it up the sharp end somehow scrapes the skin on his thumb and leaves a bright red trail there.

He's so busy wrapping his thumb in his sweater to dull the sharp sting and then _panicking _because this is a _white sweater _that he forgets he was crying over Kurt wanting to go to Prom and the humiliation of his ungelled hair and the whole mess that led him to this moment.

As he wraps the bandage over his fingers he realises he's stopped crying. He tugs the sweater over his head and looks at the crimson patters on it. They entice him; his fingers are drawn to them. He memorises the pattern or tiny lines and then carves them into his own skin.

It starts as a release, a way to feel in his body the utter agony that pulses through his heart. Then it turns into something darker, more seductive.

It becomes a punishment.

It becomes a habit.

His lucky pin sits in his pocket, and the days it gets hard, when he's sitting in the choir room and remembering just how much he's ruined and how _alone _he's going to be next year, he slides a hand to find it and presses his the pad of his thumb onto it.

No one sees. No one knows. No one asks.

It's his silent suffering. He deserves this. They don't care. Who would?

No one notices when the bandages on his wrists appear more often, nor when he starts wearing long sleeves despite the warm days, despite gym classes and exuberant dancing in Glee club.

No one notices when he quietly withdraws from the parties and the gatherings.

He almost goes too far one morning. He's cooking bacon for breakfast when the grease spits out at him and lands on his exposed wrist, sizzles at the words carved there like it's highlighting them. He wants to erase them.

_Traitor. _

_Worthless. _

_Nothing. _

So he picks up the pan and holds it to his skin as long as he can bear. He cries until he can't move and then slowly, runs cold water over the long narrow burn there.

It's not just his arm that hurts.

-.-.-.-

The blister forms on his skin a few hours later and it stings in late night breeze so he wraps it gently in cling wrap and then covers it with bandages. He keeps his jacket on all day and no one says a thing.

Kurt even compliments him on it.

It's like a knife stabbing into his heart; it twists a little more solidly when his boyfriend invites him to stay for supper that night like Blaine isn't spending his mornings pressing disposable razor blades against his thighs now that his arm is out of action.

_Ugly. _

_Pathetic. _

_Useless. _

Words carved into skin like fate on stone. He can't erase the pain. He carries the burden everywhere he goes.

-.-.-.-

The evening meal goes well. Carole makes a roast and someone manages to convince Kurt to allow his father to eat desert.

"How was school?" She asks as she dishes out caramel tart and offers them whipped cream.

Blaine smiles into his plate so he doesn't have to say: _I locked myself in the bathroom to drain away the pain. _Instead, he wrangles up a half-hearted, "Oh, it was good. Glee is doing-,"

"No cream dad," Kurt interrupts with exasperation and then pats Blaine's hand gently. Carole just rolls her eyes and waits for him to continue.

What worries Blaine is Burt's eyes fixed on his wrists. Carefully he pulls the sleeves down a little further. The flash of the white bandage disappears from view. He stumbles over his words, forgets what he was saying. Burt is watching him closely and it's unnerving. _Does he know? Can he see it?_

The tension thickens, but no one else seems to feel it so he quietly mumbles through a story about Rachel and melts when Kurt and Finn interrupt to take over from him.

If Burt watches his arms with narrowed eyes any longer he's going to wilt.

-.-.-.-

He and Kurt manage to watch all of Moulin Rouge before Burt appears and reminds Blaine of their curfew. Blaine has been waiting for this moment. He's been distracted all night and more than once Kurt has called him on it. _He's tired, _he keeps insisting, and he is. He's tired of being tired.

"I'll walk you out." Kurt whispers, and gives him a chaste kiss.

"Actually, I thought I might walk Blaine out tonight." Burt says softly, his eyes flick to Blaine's wrists and back.

Kurt frowns, but Blaine nods because he isn't going to talk about this in front of Kurt. He doesn't need him to see this new weakness.

"Okay?" Kurt asks suspiciously. "If you're planning a surprise birthday party for me you're not being very subtle."

Neither of them laughs so Kurt turns to his boyfriend and hugs him gently, "Call me when you get home?" _Definitely code for: we'll go through every detail about that walk to the car in exactly one hour or else._

"Sure." Burt gives them a moment to kiss properly by turning his back to them and starting to walk down the stairs slowly.

Blaine follows a moment later, like a man walking to his doom.

-.-.-.-

They make it to Blaine's car before Burt sighs heavily and rubs his hands over his head, lifting his old cap slightly as he does.

Blaine has never felt like he's let anyone down more in his life. That's why all this started anyway.

"Mr Hummel?" He prods gently, knowing that this is happening, "I should get going."

Just because he knows doesn't mean he's not fight it.

"How long Blaine?"

He just looks at Burt for a moment, takes in his boyfriend's father. Burt is slouched slightly, but he looks determined to Blaine's wary gaze. He shrugs and looks away as Burt's trembling fingers push back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal with bright bandages beneath. It rolls up to his elbow before Burt catches a glimpse of the words carved there.

_Nothing. _

"You did this?" Burt asks gently, running his fingers over the red scratches there.

He shrugs again. What is he to say?

"Blaine." Burt's voice cracks. _Oh God. He made his boyfriend's father cry. _

_Fuck. _Why can't he do anything right?

He doesn't realise he's crying until Burt has gathered him in his arms and is ushering him back inside.

"Son, I want you to listen to me. This, what you're doing, it's okay. It's okay that you feel like you need to do it, but you have to let me help you find a better way alright? Hurting yourself isn't the answer." Burt is pulling him into the kitchen with an alarming speed. "You don't deserve any of the pain you've been through, kid, and I'm gonna be sure you're not adding to the pile yourself."

"Dad? Blaine?"

They both spin around to see Kurt standing at the doorway, eyes wide, fixed on Blaine's arm.

It takes a moment to register, and then Blaine is moving, shoving Burt away. His feet pound on the floor like his heart against his ribcage. _This is not happening. _

It's meant to be a secret. _Can't even keep secrets anymore. _

The bathroom door slams behind him and he curls into himself. What is he meant to do now?

There's a knock on the door. "Blaine?" It's Burt. "I'm gonna come in now kid."

Burt appears before him, hands setting something aside for a moment before taking Blaine's hands in his own, gently prying the thumbtack from his fingers.

"No please, I need that." His hands reach back for it. Burt smiles sadly at him, and replaces the thumb tack with something. He frowns and looks down at the ice-cube in his hand. Burt closes his hand over it, and the cold _burns. _

Hurts him.

His eyes flutter closed. It melts over his hand, and with it, the need to find his little pin.

"Better?"

"How did you know?"

Burt just smiles. "Dads know things about their kids." He presses a kiss to his forehead and it's so fatherly. Blaine doesn't feel so alone anymore. "Blaine I need you to promise me, that whenever you need you need to hurt yourself, use the ice first okay?"

It's a promise he can keep. He doesn't promise to stop, because he doesn't know how. "Okay."

"We're going to help you stop Blaine." Burt assures him. "Me and Kurt. Carole and Finn too if you want to tell them. We're going to help you."

"Why?"

"Because you are so much more than this," Burt's hands squeeze reassuringly, "because we love you kid."

For some reason, this moment, here on the bathroom floor with ice melting all over his fingers, is the most perfect moment he can imagine.

Maybe he can find a way to smile.

_- Fin -_

_The ice trick does work for some people. If you ever have the urge to self-harm, please promise me you'll try it. You are not alone. _


End file.
